Put-tani

I just watched Pantani, the Accidental Death of a Cyclist. It documents the rise of a young boy who shows talent in a nation and a sport and a time where massive doping to get even better was required. He went pro, he got popped...he thought it was unfair and got depressed and then died doing massive amounts of cocaine alone in a hotel room. Oh wait...spoiler alert? I forgot to say spoiler alert again, didn't I ? Fuck. 

That's tragic, but here's the thing: At least he had the decency to fucking feel shamed. Lance's smug ass will probably live 40 more years wondering why people think he's a disgrace.

Why? because God hates us.

Putin, Kristin, and the new Madone (updated)

I've teased this whole Madone and Kristin Armstrong thing for far too long now, so here it goes. Let's start with Kristin...she's a local hero and I don't know her at all. I'm sure you have a brain, and given that you can probably deduce that I'm not too popular with the female Idahoan road cyclist crowd. Having said, one of the things that comes with running a website like this is I get emails from women. Women who say Kristin Armstrong is a bitch.

I believe it; I don't even have to meet her. Some athletes are awesome people, but being at that level means you have to be very selfish sometimes. Adam Craig, great guy. Steve Pete, rad human. Minnaar, Tomac, Overend....all bitchen people despite being super fast. Wait...why am I just talking about dudes? Julie Furtado is an amazing person as well. I'm lucky to have even had the opportunity to be in the same room with that woman. Hey Mark Weir...you think I forgot about you, buddy? Nope, you're in the club as well. Personal hero, even if you do ride for Cannondale now. 

But being an athlete isn't about saving the world, it's about personal accomplishment. "You gotta look out for #1 if you wanna be #1," said people like Gee Atherton.

So people hate Kristin because she comes out of retirement and wins. Then they write to me, but I don't hold the same opinion. If I could just decide I wanted to go race, and did, and I won a gold fucking metal and people thought I was a dick...well that's on them. Scoreboard, bitch. Some people hate on her, but I feel like it's sour grapes. 

Moving on, let's talk about this fuckin new Trek Madone. It's preposterous. They pay racers to ride this thing, so it will win races. Felt wins races. My beef is that it goes against trend, but not at all in a good way. How the fuck do you not offer a disc brake version of either the Emonda nor the Madone? It's like you're trying to write a rulebook on conservatism. That's the future, you fuckin assholes? And then an airfoil design? I wrote this elsewhere, but I thought we realized airfoil designs rode like hard dick long ago. Even with the IsoSpeed de-coupler, it has to still ride like a limp-ish dick. What I'm saying is: this bike is the equivalent of being on top of a gorgeous dick for 4 hours. I'll take a knuckle in the ass now and then, but I want no part of that.  

I have to go to bed, but just FYI that is a totally proportionate Putin-head on an old image of Cavendish up top. Go here for fun. 

New Slang?

I'm about to talk about some things I'm really not an expert on, but hopefully at the end I'll prove some sort of a point. Ready?

Talking about movies, an Optical printer combines images. There, that's a very simple thing to say but a very complicated thing to do. It was a machine that sandwiched images together...and Hollywood was on that ride for a long time. It was so hard that they developed (no puns here): digital. "Digital" is a whole industry based on the fact that capturing and manipulating images was hard. Resolution was hard. Layering was hard. But I'm not talking about film here. Lets move on. 

Superconductors; what do you know about 'em? I basically know this image, and nothing more. 

OK I lied, I know maybe a little bit more. Let me preface this by saying that I hated all of my E&M courses because they were very hard and counter-intuitive to me. So, what I know about that image is resistance goes up with temperature because electrons can't flow as easily due to some thermal shit. That theory seems to predict how materials behave very well, and if you look at the converse you can see how freezing something might have an opposite effect. Then you might explore that and find that in certain combinations of elements this leads to levitation at very low temps. "Levitation? WTF? That makes no sense, Bill" you say. And you're right.

The theory, as I understand it, is that in a magnetic field (did I mention that things seem only to float when frozen AND when in a magnetic field?) electrons still flow through the material, but the material itself seems to be immune to magnetism.  Why should you give even one fuck about this? There is no reason. You probably shouldn't. 

Here's my point, the film thing was a design-around. The superconductor thing came about when a guy froze mercury and saw some weird things happen. Shit only happens when you work really hard and you're not afraid of the fringe. Keep it strange, America. 

Getting drunk on the 4th doesn't make anyone patriotic, but Jesus Christ I don't care. Have fun however you can.

First off, and I mean first fucking off here, Greg Minnaar is the god damn man. Not this week because he won this weekend, not because I'm a bit of a Santa Cruz fan-whore (and I am, for good reason....I'm not a Diamond Back fan-whore because that just doesn't make sense), but because he just is. He has all the skills, and all the talent, and all the fitness as well as the mental, and when it comes together He makes it look effortless. Now...check this chickie out, eh? 

We need to talk about this new Madone...but not quite yet

Putin seems to like it, but I don't think I do. 

We haven't had a whole ton of time to chat lately, and I don't have any now, either. But we should really talk about this new Madone..and some other stuff. Hopefully I'll get some time this weekend, but for now maybe just enjoy the pic. And for you Yanks, happy 4th. 

Feel the love

See the above. Hey Lopes, your nightmare is happening again. This was sent in from someone who rode some trail somewhere and he was all up in a huff because he was ashamed that he was so vain to be on Strava. He should be, but that's besides the point, which is: the reason we all hate Lopes has nothing to do with how fast he is. It is because he is that guy. He just has to have his avatar as a pic of him being crowned with a gold metal. On top of the podium. Wearing his World Championship jersey. We get it, but what a disgrace. Why don't you take a page out of the Steve Peat Book of Being Likable once in a while? You should have Lee McCormack read it to you. 

You see, that World Championship wasn't in anything we care about, Brian. We also don't care that you're the fastest down some trail. 4X? Dual? A-line? Really? Let's play a game of Make a Deal: You keep making up disciplines to win, and we will continue not to care about your Arena/XC/Town/Jumpy Race rainbow jersey. Oh, and you've already burned through all of your sponsors and are now at the bottom of the barrel. A fun game I play in my mind is to think of who's dumb enough to give you money next. All of the good frame brands wrote you off (except for Intense, and I don't even know what's going on over there...we talked about this). Suspension brands: gone except for X-Fusion, and I made a call to Joel Smith (who will barely talk to me these days, but I still love him). You're only on X-Fusion because you still play in Europe and you're cheap, which is what I suspect is the case for the rest of your D-list sponsors. I don't mean to be rough on you, buddy, but you're basically licking up Dick Schley's sloppy seconds. Brakes? What're you on now, Tektro? Oakley sucks and cups my balls, but I'm borderline shocked you're still sponsored by 'em. Sure they're myopic, but I thought they would've seen through you a long time ago. Good on ya, I guess. 

Oh, and I got a message saying that because of my criticism, you'll probably kick my ass when you see me. True, and you could. But you've threatened to sue me once and I had to take down a site because of it. Never again. I don't care how much money you conned people out of... you burn as long as I'm alive. 

I also got another message, but this one was positive [in my eyes.] 

“A friend delivered some pizzas to Palmer and his crew in the Vail area back in the day when Palmer was a thing. Palmer asked my friend for weed and when my friend said he didn’t have any, Palmer proceeded to treat the pizza boy like a dickhead. This little anecdote kinda sums up my take on Palmer.”

— a contributor

Hey dickeaters [Palmer and Lopes, I mean], Happy Father's day. It's all down from here, so hopefully you had a good time. 

I have no idea how to start this, this entry...but no one ever does. Louis CK has a great opening that goes like this

“I don’t know how to start jokes, it’s just a problem that I have. I don’t know how to come out on stage and just start talking because...there’s no real reason for me to talk to you. I don’t know you, you don’t even know each other. ”

— Louis CK

The joke ends with him trying to express himself to a girl and pathetically saying "I want to fuck your face." This from an amazing comedian/wordsmith, and therein is a joke on a joke on a joke. When you're beginning to learn how to write they tell you, "If you don't exactly know where to go, just start your fresh paragraph with a factual statement and then delete that sentence later."  

Well, today maybe I don't even have a paragraph worth of shit to say, but here's my first sentence that I should probably delete later: I like Richard Cunningham but I fucking hate Pinkbike. 

Beyond that, here's a women in cowboy boots. Happy weekend

First Corinthians 13: And Jesus said, "Uhhh, this Leogang thing is a run for history. Give it to my boy no matter what."

Gossipy bits about Specialized and Palmer

Just some quick stuff this morning because I can't sleep and lots of shit's made its way from the ether to my ears. Some people wrote in defending Lopes in that asinine shot of he and Palmer. Their point was that Lopes has dedicated his life to racing bikes and doesn't deserve to be lumped in with Palms, who raced for 3 years and never really won anything other than a big contract from Specialized. To that I say, fair enough, but I didn't stage that shot. I'm not taking that image out of context, there they are, the two of them with scowls on their douchy mugs, plain as day. Lopes chooses to be lumped in with that. Just like he chooses to drive around in a big Sprinter van with a picture of himself on the side double parking his way through life. I can't help that he paints such a massive target around himself...I just take the shot. 

Back to Palmer, I heard he was supposed to be at Fort William as part of his new role with Intense, but was a no show. Something about missing his flight...the wheels are already coming off that cart, it seems, and it's so predictable that Intense has no one to blame but themselves. Still, I like Intense and Steber. Palmer was just a bad call. 

And then there's Specialized, who just can't seem to stop being Specialized. See, everyone can use the Horst Link now without having to pay them, so you just knew their little Specialized minds were reeling because their suspension designs were no longer er...special. So they did what they know, namely they hired a high profile suspension designer. Not Horst, not Mike McAndrews (though that whole "we can make our own suspension better than Fox or anyone else" thing really panned out, eh?), nope...they went with Peter Denk. Who? you say, to which I offer my apologies. You probably know him as "Overly-complicated Pull-shock Catastrophe Denk." Which is fine, he's a great hire...if you want your new XC bike to look like a fuckin Rube Goldberg machine because your German engineer's wild hair this week is to base all further designs on something he saw on Top Gear.

Jesus fuckin Christ, how many disposable shocks are you gonna let this guy design? You ever work on one of those Scott Genius pieces of shit? Me neither, and I used to work for Scott. When it blew up you just threw it away and they gave you a new one.  It's borderline comical. That's all for now , gotta get to work. 

I'll give you a hint: It's Marcel Kittel with Putin's face. For the fucking win.

Intense, Palmer, and (of course) Lopes stink of desperation

The photo credit on this shot was Chainsaw Productions, because "Capturors of the single douchiest image of mountain biking this year" made for an easily dismissed business card.  

I can honestly say that if riding a mountain bike makes me anything like these two asshats, I'm out. Maybe I should take up golf or some shit....I didn't sign up for this. Palmer and Lopes, I say this with all confidence: go fuck yourselves. You have gotten paychecks for decades and what have you done? You rode a bike quickly once? You got some air for some photogs?  You co-wrote a book (read: I'm "Flyin' Brian"...I can't write)? Lopes, you live in Laguna. You have money. When do you start giving back to the world? Where is your charity? And as for you Palmer, you need to go away. You were never a threat to Nico because you were too busy partying to give even half a shit about bikes. Now you have no where else to go, so you turn to us, the bicycle industry, to support you? Fuck off.

On second thought, this shot makes perfect sense. You two were made for each other. 

Another round of Guess Who (1)

Seems my new favorite thing to do is photoshop Putin's head on shirtless cyclists bodies. This one is kinda fun, if not all that relevant in today's cycling world. Your guess: 

And the winner is!

Bottom Pic is Gee Atherton. 

The more recent pic is Lance Armstrong and his buddy Matthew Mcconaughey in the foreground. For the record, I have nothing against Gee or Mcconaughey. 

And then there are these two

Besties. Guess who. 

I can't believe I missed this...

And so begins our series of images of cyclists with Vladmir Putin's head photoshopped on, called "Guess Who." Why? because I was sick of spending my days doctoring Hitler's head on Brian Lopes' body. Anyone check out this 2009 issue of Cosmo? Me neither, but I bet you know who it is [shocking reveal coming soon!]. 

Don't let the days go by

Cool Whip 

The thing in doing a site like this is that there is an obligation to new content every day. Every moment, even. I also do social media stuff elsewhere and try to write other things [read: creative writing shit]...so that's a lot of output. I look at writing like eating and shitting. If you don't eat, you only output bile. If you eat garbage, you put out mass, but it's a horrible mess.

What I'm saying is that I'm content with this coming naturally rather than pushing it. I have tons to write about, but wait for time to do it justice. For instance, I hate the new trend that massive corporations now play social media April Fools jokes. SRAM pioneered this in the bike industry and thankfully no longer does it...but a whole new crop of suck does. Does that topic need to go farther than that right now? It could, but I say no. 

Someone wrote in railing on "Why We Ride" articles...because they're shite. If you're reading that article I'm sure you know why you ride, so who gives a fuck why someone else does? "I ride for Jesus; I ride for my dead grandpa because he didn't have all this new technology and couldn't..." and they really are usually that shallow. Every one of those articles should just end with "fuck it...wanna know the truth? I ride to clear my mind and challenge myself and get away from fucktards."  

I don't need to elaborate on that submission. It's right to the point. 

I'm also not posting on NICA for the moment because I don't want this site to be NICA-centric. At the same time I'm waiting for the details as to why NICA's former-largest contributor pulled funding from the program [Hint: I hear Austin is a dick, allegedly.] I also had a phone call with a rep of theirs and was asked not to post about NICA until I go to a specific event of theirs this summer. Yeah, fuck that. Because I respect him personally I'll agree not to troll his facebook and completely destroy all of their ra-ra jerkoff festivals in social media, but we write what we feel and know on this site. That's the premise. I'm sorry, but NICA'll have to deal with someone being against them for once. More anti-NICA fodder is coming as we see fit. 

I feel this narrative has gotten negative. Let us make it up to you with sundresses and good music. 

I am not saying NICA sucks, but Tomac didn't need it.

Be humbled, child. 

On the subject of high school mountain biking, I say this to NICA: if you're trying to break through some sort of class barrier, I don't think this is the way you're going to do it. Don't care how you slice it, in the current NICA structure you're not going to find [insert stereotypical name like "Jamar" or "Jose" here] from the hood, throw him on a bike, and BAM! the USA's winning World Cups again. 

And make no mistake, breaking through the class system is something that NICA is supposed to be about. Winning World Cups, of course, is not. This is a touchy-feely, "we got bikes in to schools" organization. So what's your goal, NICA, and how do you want to fund it? To be frank, this world is about making money, and no one is going to be "all in" without a plan. Where does the money of getting more kids on bikes come from? The schools? The shops? The industry? To the NICA guy/gal who responds to this, who writes your check and where are those dollars born? 

Tell us, exactly, how this is supposed to work. 

“Where does the money of getting more kids on bikes come from? ”